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The Romance Pxjblibhing Compakt, 

Atlanta, Belfast. 

65 N. Forsyth St. 3 Crown Place. 



Copyright 1895 

BY JON. B. FEOST. 

All rights reserved . 



Press of The Foote & Davies Co., Atlanta. 



And the love that is o'er, in expiring, gives birth 
To a new one as warm, as unequalled in bliss. 
And oh ! if there be an Elysium on earth, 

It is this, it is this. 

Thomas Moorb. 




■That wrinkled woe.' 



I. 



I know not why I yet live. I am 
by the rules of romance, by the 
sequels of fiction, by the laws of 
love, condemned to die — and by my 
plighted vow I should be dead. 

I said to the woman of fifty win- 
ters of sorrow, " Should that maiden 
whom I yonder see as the golden 
east in the evening, fill my cup with 
gall, I shall spill it on a lifeless 
heart." 

Peace to the shade of that wrink- 
led woe ! Thou art gone who boasted 
not, yet suffered! I who clamored 
am yet alive ! Thus resolution rip- 
ples away in words and leaves this 



ennui, the dregs of action. But now 
since thy brains are out canst thou 
tell me, is there balm in death? 
What occupation finds thy soul at 
present ? Is thy mind thinking ? thy 
heart feeling ? Is there emotion be- 
yond the veil? Is there will? Is 
there suffering ? Ah God ! is there 
love? 

Perhaps I was restrained by the 
arm of God, and may have wished 
to see this weary organism sink by 
sweet decomposition to its mother 
earth. It may be I had not the 
requisite energy, for often have I 
longed to die could I do so without 
effort, but when energy arose it pro- 
duced a tolerance, if not a pleasure, 
of life. One love-touched moment 
will bind us by hope to an eternity of 
morrows. I may have disliked to 

6 



please the envious, pay that highest 
tribute to woman's power, and confer 
the keenest dehght if her heart indeed 
were vain. Possibly I shrank through 
fear from death. Probably contem- 
plation of the means, for my nature 
is too reflective, restrained my arm. 
Surely it was philosophy, philosophic 
fear, or fearing doubt. 

Would I improve my condition ? 
Ah ! could I only know that death 
is unawakable sleep, that eternity is 
dreamless night, that worms and dust 
is all forever ! Had this accurst 
restraint of fear — or Faith — not ever 
menaced my thought, I could have 
acted. 

It had been well too had I gone to 
the clod and escaped all the agony 
of a spirit too easily perturbed and 
therefore too deeply damned. But 



would I, a ghost, be less perturbed ? 
Would I not look back to the misery 
of life as a boon, and utter the cries 
of a soul more deeply damned ? 
Would I not leap into the prophetic 
knowledge of what life and love might 
have been, and in death regret life ? 

Should it be the nature of the soul 
to live I could not kill it. The heart 
was the seat of all that deep woe. 
Such attempt to stifle the mind might 
only quicken conscience, render the 
emotions more susceptible, the soul 
more sensitive, and thus intensify all 
my woes and add, one more dreadful. 

So, departed shade of my weary- 
Aunt, forgive my life ! Forget or pal- 
liate my word ! I but live a life for 
which occasion has not yet occurred 
to be thankful. Art thou, though, 
thankful for death ? 



II. 



I talk to the Ghost of time. I am 
the son of my past. We dance jubi- 
lee together,— myself and the spectres 
gathered up by the way,— we sing ; 
we paint ; we revere ; we create ; we 
revile. We will solve the problem of 
our existence, discover our origin, 
gloat at our affinity with the clod, 
unfurl the scrolls of the heart and 
read from the finger of God frag- 
ments of his revelation. 



There is in this mansion not made 
with hands a gloom which is not of 
night, but like an eclipse in the day. 

9 



It may be the shadow of sorrow's 
wing, for hovering- here she hatched 
a brood of woes perhaps wingless. 

It is hardly a mansion — a mere 
shanty— and probably not in God's 
house — not thronged with guests — 
where many friends of a day have 
come of their own accord and simi- 
larly gone — where a few have come 
and been enfolded as 'twere their 
own, and theirs indeed it was. But 
they have gone and that is why it 
now's in ruin. Yet some gracious 
god has kindly dreamed of me for 
nigh to thirty years. Were we less 
indolent and earthy more worlds 
might exist. My senses grow dull ; 
my soul slumbers. Let me dream, 
and new and old beings shall whirl 
about my brain. They are mine — 

AND I AM THEIRS. 



10 



III. 



It was a night of June, that season 
when the heavens most emphasize 
the glory of God. But the heavens 
had spoken ten thousand nights to 
this child unheeded. What are the 
stars, the firmament, night, day, tem- 
pests and the lightnings, compared to 
woman's burning eye ! One is the 
handiwork, the other — God. Hope 
immortal swelled my breast, eternal 
in the instant grew my soul, and 
boldly into the abyss I dropped my 
heart, then feeling myself about to 
look on God, Moses-like sank back 
and trembled. 



II 



In the garden she stood neatly 
robed in that simpHcity which be- 
comes beauty. A hundred thoughts 
he had meant to speak, but while 
at a distance the movement of his 
heart increased to palpitation. He 
approached, and under her calm and 
dignified, easy, pleasant and agree- 
able demeanor, all mental power was 
incased in the intensity of feeling. 
He perceptibly shook with the palsy 
of love. Speech was choked by ab- 
normal emotion. He stammered out 
a ''good evening," and at distant 
intervals gave thick-tongued utter- 
ance to a few platitudes, occupying 
the painful moments of silence in 
cursing timidity and imploring heav- 
en for courage requisite to decent 



12 




"In the g-arden she stood, neatly robed in that simplicity 
which becomes beauty." 



expression of himself. But his heart 
was hopelessly entangled in the em- 
barrassment of unrequited love, and 
his desperate agony continued till the 
town clock announced his departing 
hour. He fell to his knee, pressed 
her hand with intense devotion to his 
lips, and scarcely daring to raise his 
eyes to hers, reeled dizzily away to 
the train that should bear him for- 
ever away. 



Sympathy will avoid the presence 
of excessive grief, and the freshly 
wounded heart shuns the officious- 
ness of friends. It is needless to dis- 
tress ourselves by harkening to the 
undertoned escape of smothered sobs; 
when feelings and thoughts find artic- 
ulate expression we will attend. 
13 



He traveled alone, whence and 
whither equally inconsequent since 
our paramount impressions depend 
not upon place, but are due to per- 
sons. Such marble was his soul for 
retention, however, that his tempo- 
rary destination was attributable to 
nothing- other than the mental image 
he carried of an old stereoscopic view 
dropped to him as a lad by a som- 
bre visitor for a week in his father's 
house. 

So soon do magnetic souls attract 
reacting forces that after three days 
we see him enter a summer inn 
closely followed by one of portly 
and dignified form and bearing, and 
conscious of the fine eye of intelli- 
gent interest from behind, scrawl 
across the register a line of carelessly 

illegible characters, making with a 
14 



significant glance at the stranger, a 
peculiar mark at the end. 

An hour later in the cool of the 
evening upon that veranda fronting 
the lake, this handsome man with 
iron-gray moustache and goatee upon 
a face which placed him doubtfully 
on either side of fifty, formally intro- 
duced himself to our lover by offering 
a cigar. 

''Young man, you gave me an agree- 
able surprise to-day." 

'* Indeed ? It is gratifying to be the 
source of pleasure." 

''That fine sentiment," said the elder, 
with a smile, "didn't inflict mortifica- 
tion upon a bold woman on the train 
a few hours ago." 

"Silently and simply, though per- 
haps with visible resentment, I de- 
clined her rather indiscreet challenge 
to a flirtation." 

15 



"You will perceive," said the stran- 
ger uncovering a thin head of sleek 
silver hair, ''that I have seen much 
of life. I have experienced all its 
phases. I know humanity well, and 
have made enough use of its frailty 
to be deeply disgusted by such cheap 
and common conduct of women ; and 
though I have been on the road for 
twenty-eight years, I never before 
saw a young man of spirit and intel- 
ligence resist an appeal from a fair 
woman for a night's festivity. I did 
not expect the gratification of seeing 
her turned away abashed and con- 
fused by a look of severe contempt." 

"My action, sir, which you evi- 
dently witnessed, justly indicated my 
feeling. It simply rebuked indiscre- 
tion. True the lady and her compan- 
ion attracted the attention of the car, 

i6 



but only by innocent gaiety. Her 
bold and rather indelicate appeal 
would never have been made had she 
been alone, and had I taken up the 
glove she would have cut the affair 
short at the station. You judge the 
conduct, did not observe the lady, her 
clean face, her eye brilliant with mis- 
chief, her fine forehead shown by the 
artful arrangement of her frizzes. 
For an instant something shadowed 
my mind as by the dim return of the 
long lost vision of a dream. Momen- 
tarily the like seemed to swim before 
her lashes, and she was embarrassed ; 
if bad she would not have been 
abashed. Did you fail to observe 
that she was met by a motherly 
woman, who may have been her aunt, 
and borne from the depot in a private 
carriage? Everything indicated that 
17 



she is vivacious, nothing" that she is 
vicious." 

''Young man," rejoined the drum- 
mer with serious mirth, ''you speak 
the words of a novice with the tongue 
of an oracle. When you have trav- 
eled longer you will know more and 
think you know less. Woman ogles 
only with an evil eye; believe me, 
there isn't a virtuous hair in exist- 
ence." 

*'Let me disabuse you of the error 
that I am on the road." 

"Ehl but the mark?" 

"To secure your acquaintance, my 
wise senior, and at the office your 
advantage over the tourist." 

"Indeed!" returned the drummer 
with agreeable chagrin, "No similar 
restraint now that we are met. You 
summon and I will tip. Learn of the 
music aboard yonder." 

i8 



" I have, sir, expecting alone to kill 
the night. 'Tis the ' Swan ' out for a 
dancing excursion up the lake. Her 
tour extends several hours into the 
moonlight." 

** Alone, eh? Come, didn't you 
mean to keep an outlook for the long 
lashes your sleek eye followed even 
into the carriage with her *aunt?' 
But, shall we take the sail?" 

'' I am perfectly willing." 

Together they left the veranda, the 
lover not particularly attentive to the 
remarks of his senior upon the distant 
lake view with its undulating shore, 
enhanced in solemn beauty by a cir- 
cling strip of inky cloud purple-hem- 
med by the viewless sun. The young 
man from the key of their short talk 
was solving the character of the 
stranger. Indeed, it is difficult to say 
19 



if they were different in spiritual con- 
stitution, or if their fascinating antag- 
onism of thought and feehng was due 
to difference of age, experience and 
late impression. The elder was a sa- 
tire on life, settled, disdainful content- 
ment with its lowest pleasures. The 
younger was a sonnet of hope, doubt- 
ful yearning for something above the 
best of humanity. His heart was 
centered upon woman, his worship 
was of woman, and he felt that 
through woman he had gained his 
highest glimpse of the divine, and 
that her virtues were his temple of 
faith. Yet at the traveler's assault 
he was not chagrined, because his 
own trust was no innate conviction, 
but new as the love in his heart. 
Nor was he even surprised, since 
under the results of his past conduct 



20 



he had often doubted himself nearly 
into the same despair of feminine 
fidelity. But under present feelings 
he would not disregard the cue to a 
subject of paramount interest, though 
he would pursue it after his usual cus- 
tom, not to controvert, but to call up 
the full strength of opposition and 
reflectively pit it against the strongest 
of his own thoughts, that he might 
^ hold nothing not tenable. 

Thus it was when seated com- 
fortably on deck just as the "Swan" 
swinging about gave them a little 
stir of the oven-warm air, that the 
young man said in his low indiffer- 
ent tone : 

" My friend, you have a long while 
upon this treacherous sea captained 
your life-bark without a mate." 

"You assume." 



21 



"You are indeed an old man never 
to have loved." 

"You assume more/* 

As these feints completely failed to 
arouse any activity in his companion, 
the young man immediately resolved 
upon a direct thrust, with what admir- 
able result we shall see. 

" I infer," said he with some empha- 
sis, "no heart holding even the cin- 
ders of love would throw such black- 



ness over woman." 



"I judged you to be older," ejacu- 
lated the elder. "You seem inclined 
to prolong the verdant season. To 
the infatuation called love there isn't 
enough substance to produce ashes." 
"But its tremendous power ?" 
" Do you not know of the philoso- 
phy which unmistakably traces our 
emotions to two primary instincts? 

22 



Nothing- can be stronger than com- 
mingled pride, emulation, delight of 
conquest, sense of property, and fierce, 
impetuous passion. Love concenters 
in one breast, the feelings of the court- 
ier, hero, conqueror, miser and brute. 
It is quintuple craving, a spasm of the 
senses, tumultuous insanity of desires, 
which subsides as they are satiated. 
Tis a throng- of embosomed conten- 
tions, a group of imprisoned demons 
wreaking- intemperate veng;eance by 
swinging- upon the heart-strings and 
gnawing at their roots, choking the 
channels of the blood, wildly tram- 
pling underneath and clutching at the 
inner throat above : and if that fever 
is now raging in this bosom," contin- 
ued the drummer, firmly tapping our 
lover's lapel, ''arise to the dignity of 
a man and fling the furies out." 
23 



The young- man drew slightly back 
somewhat surprised and a little piqued. 
But his self-confidence was absolute, 
and this range and system now added 
to the stranger's force of thought, 
made him only the more anxious to 
hear full disquisition of this phase of 
the subject. He therefores uggested 
that if love were indeed but the union 
of these sentiments its force might be 
thus referred, but that this certainly 
could not explain its virtuous incen- 
tives, righteous resolves and aspira- 
tions, quivering buoyancy of soul, 
immortal faith, transcendent hope for 
lucid joys eternal, aerial fancies — sub- 
lunar reflections from heaven — spirit- 
ual dreams and evanescent worship: 
which elicited a bitter smile from the 
elder, with this response : 

''The delirium, my friend, is over in 
24 



a day. To-morrow curiously you will 
watch the illusions vanish. If then 
you reflect upon what now I say, you 
will understand their whence and 
whither. 

''Sympathy, affection, reverence, 
loyalty, conscience, arise from the 
multifarious play of social forces. As 
tribes expand into nations savage 
impulse attenuates into public opin- 
ion ; embosomed excitements fiercely 
responsive to the former become 
latent under the latter, or little active ; 
the moral faculties somewhat subside 
and are less vivid than under the play 
of their creative sentiments. But as 
human attachments arose from a sim- 
ilarity in the individuals grouped, the 
deepest affection will attach those of 
most similar taste, disposition, capa- 
city. Within this circle of the few 

25 



who are esteemed the moral senses 
requicken. Fac-similes meet; coun- 
terparts join; TWO— mutually extol 
and adore; for each all the social 
forces radiate from the other. Pride, 
and the sense of glory and shame, 
awaken; approval is sought; self- 
esteem flattered; sentiments com- 
mingle, emotions compound, motives 
coalesce; ancestral blood fevers the 
veins, around this physical feeling 
clusters the overwhelming aggregate 
of psychical excitements; woman 
sinks bewildered into abandoning 
trust, man reels in the frenzy of 
exultant liberty, and two lovers ce- 
ment their souls in an embrace of all- 
enfolding possession.*' 

The sarcasm which tainted the last 
of this speech evoked from the young 

man the charge that his companion 
26 



was unduly enthusiastic to convince 
another of what to himself was of only- 
morose and bitter satisfaction: To 
which the stranger agreeably re- 
sponded that he never had thrust 
upon any mind a disagreeble truth; 
that his elucidation had been elicited ; 
that furthermore he well understood 
how little convincing to fancy were 
facts, and that he wished our lover, if 
he could by avoiding philosophy and 
fact, to enjoy his dream until expe- 
rience forced him to realize and feel 
the fickle frailty of the vain sex under 
property, flattery and passion. 

Then to the music and dance which 
had begun he turned as if away from 
an image of distress, and after a 
moment asked if the young man did 
not mean to choose a partner. 



27 



LOVE. 

Some conception of the effect of 
love may be gained from the influence 
of poetry and music. These seem an 
opening of the mind to beauties above 
us. We are impressed as with the 
near wafting of a cloud of Adenn 
caught perfumes, wrapt in whose light 
folds is a gay troop of sprightly fair- 
ies. So true is this that Landor in- 
quires of poetry ''whether it is not to 
be referred to some purer state of sen- 
sation and existence;" and Richter 
says to music: ''Away! away! Thou 
speakest to me of things which in all 
my endless life I have not found and 

shall not find." So love, which is 
28 



the source of all art, unites the force 
of these and many like influences, to 
bear us into the presence of ''hover- 
ing and evanescent beauty," nigh to 
the confines of some spiritual world, 
where with Whittier we 

Dimly guess from blessings known 
Of greater out of sight. 

We are thrown into the peculiar state 
arising from a union of intense eager- 
ness of actual enjoyment with the in- 
finite agitation of hopeless pursuit. 
With ardent hilarity we clasp to our 
throbbing heart this cluster of immor- 
tal joys, and with intensified sensibil- 
ities weep for celestial raptures which 
are revealed but not bestowed. 

These revelations, however, are not 
distinctly marked outlines of celestial 

realms nor clear-cut angel features. 
29 



They are but intense suggestions of 
uncertainties. Of the unseen and 
spiritual we are never sure. This is 
the torment of lovers. We are skep- 
tical of the virtue that has overcome 
us. We suspect beauty to be a hover- 
ing delusion. We doubt that we pay 
our deepest devotion to a chimera. A 
friend writes me thus — '' My lady is 
that rose of beauty which is the flow- 
ering of virtue, a serene, sincere and 
noble woman; do you think she can 
be a coquette?" I answer that within 
his heart must he solve his problem, 
which to me is no problem, since I am 
too indifferent to his lady to suspect 
her sincerity. The ecstatic moments 
of a lover's serenest faith are broken 
by obscure forebodings and agonizing 
dreads. The ideal possibilities of vir- 
tue awakened within himself he fears 
30 



will not be realized in her who is the 
object of his affections. These doubts, 
and the near hovering of unattainable 
joys give to love its tincture and hue 
of solemnity. It falls in upon the soul 
''at once like a bitter and a balm;" and 
fills the bosom with what Irving calls 
"a soft tumult of pleasing pains." It 
pacifies yet perturbs. Into the hours 
of crystal trust are dropped moments 
of lurid suspicion. It fires the soul. 
The beautiful object of love's first 
hope possessed is a magic opening of 
avenues through which we aspire to 
realms of diviner bliss. We do not 
rest. Out of the very skepticism of the 
lover are born to him resolutions that 
he will merit the highest virtue of the 
maiden. As love was his revelation 
so now does woman become his 
religion. To him she is ''a sacred 
31 



precinct. We know that we must 
deserve to be gods before we enjoy 
the divine moment in its plenitude. 

Only since meeting the philo- 
sophical analysis of love, only since 
knowing that nearly all incentives 
springing from the social instincts 
enter into its composition, only since 
realizing that into this irresistible pas- 
sion are aggregated all our sympa- 
thies, affections and emotions, have I 
understood the expression of Count 
Orsino in Twelfth Night : 

When the rich golden shaft 
Hath killed the ftock of all affections else* 

In the lover's heart his maiden usurps 
the place of society. For her is un- 
dertaken his labors. For her exists 
his virtue. Her desire is his incen- 
tive. Her approval is his glory, her 
32 



love his reward. Her disapproval is 
his doom to solitude, to rueful regret, 
whence the unhappy answer : 

Only so far afflicted, that we live 
Desiring without hope. 

Paradise has been revealed and en- 
trance refused. The heart is haunted 
by ideals of beauty and delight which 
are never to be enjoyed. Since attain- 
ment is impossible, effort is useless. 
Life is without, purpose hence without 
energy, without ambition. 

We are often told of the redeeming 
power, of the elevating potency of a 
single expression of woman's love. 
We should be told also of the degra- 
dation sure to follow her adverse 
word. However tempered with sym- 
pathy it is an exhalation of death. 
The philosopher would predict dis- 

33 



astrous consequences to having the 
clustered emotions thrust from their 
center of attraction. The poet would 
foretell sad results of any violence to 
"The flock of all affections." The 
Biographer proclaims of the unhappy 
lover, that, *'the river of his history 
here dashes itself over that terrific 
Lover's Leap; and, as a mad foaming 
cataract, flies wholly into tumultuous 
clouds of spray." 
Upon the smile as from the frown of 

Her who was Us destiny, 

man has arisen to the strength and 
virtue of gods and the bliss of heaven, 
or sank to the terrible depth and 
dreadful destiny of fiends with a man- 
gled soul. 



34 



IV. 



In that ethereal realm where phan- 
tacies entertain the heart with tragic 
mimicry, I long after went dancing, 
gliding, floating down the maple- 
arched avenue of that former garden 
scene — swaying and tossing arms and 
head and legs, twirling an ebony cane 
in harmony with the music of my 
soul, while the trees bowed and waved 
and danced in time to the twirling of 
the cane — the stars shot and flashed 
like fireworks in the night — and on 
the revel went, until the moon's cynic 
grin over the mountain-top caught my 
eye, which caught the object of his 
sardonic glance. The cane fell ! I 

35 



stood aghast ! Nature was transfixed, 
half-bowed in awful reverence ! For 
there SHE stood, serene, composed, 
natural, in the sphere of the gods. 
Her eye caught mine. Overcome, I 
recovered myself, and turned to take 
a godlike pace away. Oh ! Shadowy 
vision of the eternal world ! Hover- 
ing evanescence of gardens and their 
goddess! Rapturous transfiguration 
of the real ! Heaven-wafted waif of 
woman ! The DREAM of her radi- 
ance descended along my path above, 
and seemed to say with the glow of 
dawn and breath of fields, ''an instant 
to choose her for life, or me forever." 
Mortal again, I turned an appealing 
look into my lady's eyes. Indig- 
nantly she drew her graceful height 
and said, ''you've used your time of 
choice in pause," and vanished. Reel- 
36 



ing, bewildered, I saw with dizzy look 
that smihng shadow approach, suffuse 
its breath upon me, touch my bosom, 
decrease and disappear within. My 
frame shook, my heart quivered, I 
stag-g-ered, gasped, awoke, and fell 
fainting into life. 



37 



A LETTER. 

My Friend : 

I had not heard and wept at the 
news of her marriage with the old 
man. Somehow I had always trusted 
she would not in that manner sac- 
rifice her heart and ambition, her 
higher hopes. You know I often 
thought of her, even though I had 
become self-contained, even though I 
had by that visit disillusioned myself. 
Who can blot out an impression 
indelible? What shall I say now 
that I have dried the tear? Simply 
this, he who has a wife without love, 
has a woman without fidelity. 



38 



Once I saw a heap of gold. I knew 
many pleasures it would buy. It was 
only across the way, a brief and easy 
journey. And the gold shone in all 
its mellowest brilliancy. Its huge 
round pieces looked as smiling an 
invitation as large coquettish eyes 
from under auburn locks. And out 
of its bulk arose robust form, which 
swayed to and fro, and beckoned with 
two strong graceful arms, till all its 
brilliancy was concentered into one 
intense appeal. What miser would 
it not have crazed ? But / was not a 
miser. 



39 



In proportion as we are inspired by 
any tender emotion, passion is sub- 
dued until in profound and perfect 
love, it disturbs the thoughts only 
with ideal images of the future child. 
No man who has loved and been 
loved can think without a shudder of 
a babe coming into the world the 
off-spring of aught but love. 



Madam, have you contemplated the 
awful Eternal fatalities hinging upon 
your act ? You have cheated God of 
a noble posterity. How many thou- 
sands of years is the world retarded 
by this duplicity in every generation! 
Hadst thou allied thy brow whose 

lofty arch startled and evercame me 
40 



with speechless wonder when first I 
raised its heavy veil of deep brown 
locks, hadst thou allied thy perfect 
physiognomy, thy symmetry of soul, 
thy matchless form to love-inspired 
and noble youth — which was pos- 
sible, for you said you had awakened 
love in other hearts than mine and the 
old man's — what virtue and genius 
would then have graced thy Daughter 
and Son. Thou wouldst have sat an 
eternal queen. Mother to an endless 
line of immortal souls. But now — 
what will thy children be ! Or will— 
any accident happen ? 




41 



AN EPISODE. 

One evening, a few days after the 
events of the moonHght excursion, 
our lover threw himself on one end of 
a rustic bench on the eastern shore, 
and sat looking downward over the 
lake to the west. As the sun yet 
lingered on the summit of the oppo- 
site hill, he had forward and low 
drawn his hat as a shade, and on an 
open book resting on his knee ap- 
parently rested his eyes, whose gaze, 
however, was vacant, since he was 
lost in reflection upon the shallow 
freaks of the human heart, more fluct- 
uating than the bending waters below. 

After a time he became conscious 

of an approaching step, then of a 
42 



gentle touch upon the right shoulder, 
and of a mellow voice sounding 
sweetly in his ear this articulation : 

"Being here yet you must have 
found some enchantment in our woods 
and lake?" 

" I should have soon discarded hope 
of finding any prolonged attraction 
but for my good fortune in this meet- 
ing." 

The lady, struck by some peculiarity 
of his voice or speech, threw her pene- 
trating glance full into his eyes, ap- 
proached, placed her hand on the book 
he held over his folded arms, and 
scanned him as if she would know the 
countenance of his soul. Then fall- 
ing back a few paces she seemed for a 
moment lost in the mysteries of some 
early dream, but soon waking, said : 

''Did you in childhood play on the 

43 



banks of Olentangy with a girl you 
loved?" 

The memory of woman goes into 
earlier childhood and more vividly 
than does that of man, and our friend 
was for several moments lost under 
the confused throng of scenes thus 
unexpectedly convoked. 

''Ah!" he said arousing himself at 
last, 'There is keen delight in this 
memory. You ask me to review my 
childish sports and redivide an in- 
nocent glee with a glad comrade, to 
re-enter the unbroken circle of youth 
and feel again the invisible force of 
a kindred heart. Yes, yours is the 
developed face of that sweet com- 
panion." 

Twilight had sunk into the abyss of 
night. The moon tardy in his chase 
had not appeared, and under the 

44 



shadow of the low oak there was an 
interesting though general reminis- 
cence of the life and impressions of 
each from the day diverse chance had 
separated the two children to this 
night when they had been accident- 
ally rejoined in youth. 

This conversation we shall not 
further chronicle than to give a few of 
the impressions which a varied and 
eventful life had deeply registered 
upon the heart of the young man. 

''I have always," said he, ''desired 
to stand aloof from the world of 
traffic, from men and affairs, because 
the passions, judgment, conscience, 
reason, the whole soul of man is 
flexible, and you are familiar with 
the observation of Herbert Spencer 
upon our national characteristics, 
that our fight in the face of one 

45 



another's opposition, our selfish rush 
and self-confident struggle, has de- 
picted upon the general features a 
kind of 'do or die' expression." 

"Though I well remember," said 
the lady, ''that this was a character- 
istic of your childhood I am sure you 
have well escaped its registry." 

"Thank you," returned the young 
man in his habitually placid and good- 
humored manner. "I can more than 
reciprocate the compliment, for your 
amiability is innate as your wit is 
natural, and you have retained the 
innocent softness of those eyes which 
under the heat of vivid imagery some- 
times flash against the stars." 

"But you were speaking of what 
the philosophers call environment." 

"If I have escaped the stamp and 

die of our national character it is not 
46 



because I have lived in solitude, had 
no ambitions, strugg:les and defeats, 
hopes and failures, but because I have 
always remembered that it were per 
haps quite as well to die as to do, and 
likely better to have lived and not 
done, than never to have lived at all- 
I have observed the end of the man 
of the world. His success is one of 
the pathetic spectacles of human na- 
ture. It doubtless evokes God's sar- 
donic grin. 

"What is a man of the world, of the 
business and social conceptions and 
conduct of the world, when his day is 
done ? He lives in no impressions of 
love left along- his path, nor bears he 
any tenderness away. His life is the 
wild, mad rush of Pluto through the 
earth without the capture of any Pro- 
serpine. Crushed and withered loves 

47 



lie in the hearts which have essayed 
to commune with his, and no pulsa- 
tions of joy have those known which 
would have bled for him. Too crush- 
ingly has he stepped to leave behind 
any growths of gratitude and sym- 
pathy. 

''It is of slight profit to gain a 
fortune at the cost of all human sen- 
sibilities. Yet it remains a fact that 
whoever is compelled to extract sus- 
tenance from the fruits of his unaided 
toil is crowded into the midst of temp- 
tations to meanness, duplicity and 
fraudulence, which create our misera- 
ble mercenary disposition and inevita- 
bly endanger the highest qualities of 
of humanity. The dishonesty and 
depravity produced by this heartless 
calculation and close-fisted struggle 

produce our moral skepticism. Penu- 
48 



rious distrust, agitated, envious fear, 
everywhere in business and social cir- 
cles, breathe out against faith their 
blighting puffs, laden with demoniacal 
efficacy to scorch and wither the last 
animated hope in the human breast. 
The atmosphere of a soiree^ a brief 
sally into this social sycophancy, af- 
fects us 'like the dreariness of the 
heaths and the moaning of the winds/ 
We are apparently and perhaps really 
in life's most desolate and barren 
waste. We long for the refreshing 
oasis of solitude, or for communion 
with one true friend. There is mental 
and moral malaria in our business 
and social atmosphere. Under the 
murky sky of deceit and distrust, mis- 
anthropy is contagious. Spiritual 
poison passes from soul to soul. An 
excursion, however brief and rapid, 

49 



throug^h this healthless region will 
leave its traces of disease upon the 
disposition. The episode will chron- 
icle itself in the character. The deed 
to-day will show itself in the thought 
to-morrow. We believe as we act 
and are acted upon." 

''You will," interposed the lady, 
"make me a misanthrope." 

*' No; allies of Satan are we in even 
a mementary and passive assent to 
the necessity of these selfish methods, 
and much more the children of hell 
in our skepticism of every honest 
and virtuous impulse, in the depravity 
of our motives, and in our measures 
of success, in our silence under the 
egotism and arrogance with which 
such men, and I regret to add such 
women, consider all good people stu- 
pid, and think him only wise who 
50 



believes in neither soul nor senti- 
ments, and makes self-interest the 
mainspring of actions and life." 

''You speak of hell," said the lady, 
*'as though it were a veritable place; I 
have read a Persian proverb which 
says it is but a spark of the useless 
troubles we have given ourselves." 

"I think as many miseries arise," 
responded the young man, ''from the 
pains we uselessly give one another. 
Anticipated joys are thwarted by our 
associates. Humanity is the cause of 
our defeat and agitation. People im- 
agine that by hindering the joys of 
others they increase their own. The 
gaiety of children annoys the repose 
of age, satiated manhood is envious 
of the delights and gratifications of 
youth, each imagines himself 'called 
to search and try the hearts of others,' 



and the morbid and morose with 
*sour visages enough to scare ye,' 
warn and interfere against every 
pleasure. 

'Thus perversity and cursedness 
render Hfe a perpetual agitation, labor 
and disappointment. The trust and 
confidence of youth and young love 
soon sink into melancholy and misan- 
thropy under the heavy and inevitable 
thought that its friends are fewer and 
less true than they seem. Fruitless 
wishes, vain hopes, unsatisfied desires 
and affections, triply emphasize life's 
only lesson — that we will never obtain 
what we expect. The multiplicity of 
years is but its repetition and rehear- 
sal until we worship at that shrine 
which promises a quiet and passive 
peace, the absorption of all desires 
into senseless Nirvana. Until then, 
52 



life is a weary effort after the unat- 
tainable, a fitful struggle for things 
we are never to receive,a striving for 
what we are not to attain. It pos- 
sesses three parts — a delusive hope, a 
spasmodic effort, a sinking despair. 
Sooner or later every bark is wrecked 
'in the vain attempt to reach the un- 
reachable.' If we do not, in early life, 
learn how it will go with us by observ- 
ing how it has gone with others, we 
will, in later life, learn how it has gone 
with others through knowledge of 
how it goes with ourselves." 

'' But is it not true," asked the lady, 
"that life's peace, that its content- 
ment and joy, its only good and real 
glory, depend upon those ties which 
bind heart to heart, upon the sympa- 
thies and sensibilities, upon the con- 
stancy and trust which you say are 

53 



violated and crushed by the deceit 
and heartlessness of envious, merce- 
nary and selfish spirits?" 

''True, Fair Oracle," said the young 
man, with a sympathy almost enthusi- 
astic, '* we cannot live upon bread nor 
bullion, but must absorb the essence 
of God, and God's divinest manifesta- 
tions are through sacred and inviola- 
ble friendships. Distrust of human 
sanctities is the saddest infidelity. 
Faithless in man is faithless in God, 
and a mote in a brother's eye is a 
defect in divinity. Upon what shall 
confidence rest when the highest 
power of virtue succumbs to vice? 
What shall support the heart upon 
the discovery of defects in her, or in 
him, who has been the object of our 
adoration? When sympathy stabs, 
when love hates, when energy faints, 

54 



when fidelity betrays, when virtue 
falls, the silver cord is loosed and the 
golden bowl is broken." 

''But," replied the lady, ''we must 
restore our hearts by restoration of 
frankness, sincerity and honor, by 
fervent friendships and faithful loves. 
In the true order of society what is now 
most deprecated, must be most valued. 
Joy and peace are impossible without 
confidence and trust. We should see 
but the bright side of every being. 
We should not repeat the weakness 
of any person. Entertain me with the 
nobleness of your friend. Tell me 
the best of the good and only the 
good of the best, for unless the atmos- 
phere of life is brilliant and beautiful 
with good will and kindness, it is not 
well worth inhaling. I think it wise to 
promote and conserve the purity and 

55 



innocence, the faith and simpHcity 
of childhood. Nor can I see why 
impertinence and skepticism should 
forestall the pleasures of youth's pure 
and natural affections. It is doubtful 
if there be any other time of life of 
equal satisfaction, unless these affec- 
tions and fancies are carried through 
their natural development to the 
stronger, deeper friendships and loves 
of maturer age. Where the few 
bright joys of this innocent affection 
are disturbed and frightened away by 
our bitter and stoical wisdom, we 
know nothing more of the felicities of 
life. The only pleasure and pride 
of age is often the memory and 
rehearsal of these experiences. Do 
you know I have a little garden in 
my soul for the cultivation of heart's 

ease ? 

56 



*'Ah, my lady, the attractions of 
your heart have increased with the 
traceless tread of sHppered summers 
across your brow. In that garden 
you have had the happiness to render 
spiritual flowers perennial. Unmo- 
lested in effort, unmolesting in con- 
duct, should be the condition and 
spirit of all. What is joy to life is 
good, what is grief and woe is evil. If 
faith is folly and love a madness, 
since under these states the mind sees 
its divinest ideals and the soul reaches 
its greatest capacity of thought and 
action, I do not crave the early return 
of barren sanity. Does it not con- 
duce to our happiness, my sweet 
friend, to know the lovable? And 
add to our delight to know the joy- 
ous? Knowledge of virtue savors 
life; a morning glance of purity sweet- 

57 



ens the day ; an embrace of love ren- 
ders the nig^ht divine." 

Our friend accompanied these words 
with appropriate gestures of affection. 

''You beheve all those beautiful 
ideas?" said the lady, with genuine 
surprise, the cause of which is a little 
doubtful, and with some coquetry in 
her glance and manner. 

''Ah, my lady," replied the young 
man, "how could I in your presence 
disbelieve amiability and affinity ? 
How could I from this shadow look 
at the moon, the light clouds flung 
athwart the sky, at the hills and black 
woods across the placid lake, and dis- 
believe the Night, and Poetry. Yes," 
continued the lover in a cool rhapsody 
of enthusiasm unique with himself, "I 
believe Hope and Buoyancy and 
Faith. I believe friendship and sacri- 
58 



fice, devotion and worship and won- 
der, I believe sympathy and beauty 
and thought, I beheve the surgings of 
the spirit, the waves of the sea of 
Soul, the tides of aspiration in answer 
to the attractions of heaven. I be- 
lieve earth and sky, sunshine and air, 
and the life they create. I believe the 
mountain and plain, the water and 
wind, smoke, fire, hail, and the grand- 
eur, awe, and inspiration they arouse: 
for I believe in Trust and in Love and 
in God." 

"My sweet love," continued the 
young man, modulating and modify- 
ing his tone and manner, "to look 
into those eyes, two heavens, black 
abysses too deep for stars, fills me 
with breathless ethereal hope, and 
swings my soul aloft on wingless 
buoyancy between the worlds." 

59 



** I have already once taken liberty," 
said the young" lady, demurely, ''to 
call you out of the sky." 

''Your graces," said the youth, 
"should be above the clouds." 
"Out of sight?" said the lady. 
'* No, for I should follow them." 
"Are you not contented here?" 
"More than contented: I am hope- 
iul." 

"Of what?" 

"Of obtaining happiness." 
" Have you not received all ?" 
" No," replied the lover, again press- 
ing her pliable form to his bosom and 
covering her face, lips and forehead 
with rapturous kisses, "sweet lady, 
you have given much, but not the 
highest bliss." 

In another hour day will stripe the 
eastern sky. For this brief time we 



60 



shall not violate the sanctity of two 
lovers. We retire. God has created 
nig-ht to cover scenes that should rest 
under an eternal veil. 



Under the dawn the young- man sees 
his lady safely home. Is she safe ? 

That incident has occurred the first 
experience of which creates an epoch 
in the human mind. Man invariably 
feels himself more a man, woman is 
more womanly. The broken sparkle 
of the maiden's eye is by marriage, or 
the equivalent of marriage, refined into 
a subdued and steady fire ; the gaze is 
no longer wide-eyed and direct, but is 
furtive and somewhat downward the 
soul shielding itself under the droop- 
ing lids. The countenance is more 
clear and crimson, the smile more sig- 
nificantly wreathed, the voice softer, 
the heart more tender and affectionate. 

6i 



But certainly it was to trace quite a 
different effect upon the heart of the 
young man that we have followed him 
into the morning. 

**It is strange," murmured he to 
himself as he made his way through 
the forest. ''My friend tells me she 
has a lover who adores her as the par- 
agon of virtue, as / till now^ have 
adored another. '*Ah!" cried he 
with a sigh, ''in whose arms has 
she this night slumbered?" 

He cast his restless, sweeping eyes 
through the heavens, sighed longer 
but lower than before, and wondered 
that the once in all time he had 
wished power, he lacked it, and now, 
naught caring, power too much pos- 
sessed. Then he remembered that 
here he had been the acting^ hitherto, 

the ACTED UPON ! 
62 



REFLECTIONS. 

The object of God in crossing us in 
love is to teach us to get along with- 
out those we love. It is a lesson so 
arduous that many people, especially 
women, never can learn it, but when 
learned we become deified, are gods, 
and rule our existence with uncom- 
panioned sway. 



Patience is what a man most needs, 
because what he least has. I suppose 
were I woman, I would not express 
my present sorrow. 



We can with such devoted love so 
adore a human emanation of the 
63 



Celestial as to bring- into our quick- 
ened vision some form and shape out 
of the thick darkness where God is. 



Here are the three states of man: 
No love — petty purposes and narrow 
action, a bubble on the surface of 
the human sea ; True love requited — 
a noble and generous purpose, broad 
vision, magnanimity, and a constant 
blessing; Love unrequited — a deep- 
ened expanded soul, damned with a 
bitter sense of its damnation, all its 
holy impulses plucked out by the 
roots, its castles of joy and hope tot- 
tering ruins, a devastated soul. 



Love rising in two souls as a tidal 

wave, sweeps away customs, laws, 

morals, religions, vows, traditions, and 
64 



carries man and woman, sealed in an 
embrace of despair and panic, out and 
farther out over family and honor and 
pride, till they strike the reef of death 
and are washed onto the bosom of 
the deep. 

Love flowing through two souls 
like a fountain from God lifts them in 
honor and freedom and joy and floats 
them buoyant with poise and equi- 
poise through the channel of time. 

But love rising in one soul to a 
dead level with life, like a swamp on 
a plain, allowing the spirit no outlet, 
no ebbing nor flowing, emanates 
vapors malignant to man, that poison 
the life and disorder the brain. 



Within us is an intricate un-under- 
standible piece of spiritual mechan- 
ism by which every step, stroke, word, 

6s 



act, thought, aspiration, hope, love, 
ALL under the range of possible 
activity, is self-registered. I am ob- 
livious to all but that to which I 
would God I could be oblivious. 
Some things I must write to remem- 
ber, others, unwritten, I remember too 
well. A tragic experience must blast 
a high hope, wither the spirit as 
with a breath from hell. Its effects 
may endure forever, but the emo- 
tions of the moment, the thoughts 
aroused during the event, very soon 
are gone beyond recall. 



That loss of ambition, that resig- 
nation of hope, that apathy of love 
wrongly called peace, is the somnam- 
bulism of a soul exhausted beyond 
the possibility of repose. 



66 



One will find LOVE to be the 
necessity, not any particular object of 
love. Away with folly then ! Utilize 
the sex. Passions of the heart are 
hungers to be fed, insatiable, of infi- 
nite capacity. 



Love is the endless multiple of 
human wishes, the caprice of woman, 
the humiliation of man ! In youth it 
is fever, to the aged peace, the young 
maiden's dream, the old maid's lament, 
the widow's bliss. In economics it is 
our way to fortune, in politics the in- 
trigue, in society the assignation. In 
nature's symphony it is the chorus of 
flowers. In the low it is lust, in the 
high it is heaven. It is the growl of 
the den, the word of the dove, the eye 
of the virgin. 



67 



Now we sweep 

The wrecks into nothingness ! 

Fondly we weep 

The beauty that's gone ! 

Thou 'mongst the sons of earth, 

Lofty and mighty one, 

Build it once more ! 

In thine own bosom the lost world restore ! 

Now with unclouded sense 

Enter a new career ; 

Songs shall salute thine ear, 

Ne'er heard before ! 

Goethe. 



IN ANOTHER GARDEN. 

**You are incorrigible." 

**In the book you yesterday returned 
were a hundred marked passages that 
gave me hope and bade me come." 

"You are romantic." 

''My lady, how can I express to you 
the truth and not appear romantic? 
The real is the unseen; tangibility is 
transient. When I recall an incident 
of our association you remember and 
admit the event. But that is insig- 
nificant. An emotion you will accept 
as real, only the thousand impossible 
joys it promises render it incredible. 
You, being woman, cannot deny the 
fact of hope; the things hoped are so 
69 



transcendent, however, that we sus- 
pect it is the meanest Har of the heart. 
The dancing and sport of the Httle 
god too emphatically announces his 
presence within, yet he swashes such 
a lurid future, that we fear he is a part 
of the deceit of the Great God." 

"But I am incapable of awaking 
such devotion." 

''Believe then that through you, the 
Beautiful, I worship the Divine, the 
vision beyond." 

*'You must see me as a woman 
only." 

''I have learned that love creates, it 
does not deceive. Illusions are of 
first love, the dawn of imagination, 
the hour of spectres when the radiant 
and serene walk with an everlasting 
air. But as you will I see you as wo- 
man — sea of molten life— flash from a 
70 



hidden world — lurid flame of God! 
Ah lady, my heart is unrestrainable; 
it throbs against the stars; I must rend 
that feminine veil and leap into the 
magic realm of your volatile soul." 

"Only as a stealthy angel bending 
o'er a precipice can my kisses greet 
thee." 

"Ah, madam, are these the loftiest 
phases of love? and this the deepest 
bliss of the emotions? Can God ele- 
vate our serene destiny? Do we not 
revel in the most splendid attainments 
of the heart? and is not our love the 
refuge of the sweetest sentiments of 
the soul? An all-embracing sym- 
pathy. What infinitude of charm 
and beauty rushes into our open 
future ! Possession forever, but its 
fullness never attained! Constant 
bestowal, yet blisses unbestowed! 
71 



This is Woman ! this is Enigma ! this 
is Life! DeHcate aggression and 
hopeful soul attend me ever in the 
ecstasies of this siege of grace ever 
yielding but never won ! Rest me, 
O God, forever in this bosom of love ! 



72 



Ah heaven ! My heart, my heart, 
support me ! What shriek was that ? 

The agony of a mother bearing her 
child. 

Or the exultation of a child coming 
into the world ? 

The two commingled. 

Heaven and hell attuned together ! 
In the name of both I surrender. The 
husband is lord of the night. Love 
has usurped his privilege by distort- 
ing the day. His is the greater con- 
venience, ours the superior knowl- 
edge. Neither of confidence can 
boast, since she is his when she must 
be, and we are told only what she as- 
sumes we know. Equally duped are 
both. He only who is present sways 
woman's heart. 

73 



The child is born under the twihghU 
To resemble love is but a psychological 
law. To be love's perfect child is im- 
possible, for woman belonging once 
to man is physically his forever. 

The constant guest hath come. In- 
effable art of God to design the most 
beautiful sweetest piece of nature for 
the caprice and comfort of the most 
innocent, woman's bosom for the babe. 

Blissful repose, adieu ! Curses on 
this progeny if its countenance doth 
not dissemble ! 



74 




*'" ffV' 



A LETTER. 

My Love : 

Are you as lonely to-day as I ? and 
when with me are you as I with you 
never weary ? Two lovers should not 
be separated on a bright day, for when 
nature sings the heart is filled with 
longings nothing can appease but 
present love. Nor on a dark day, for 
when nature sighs the heart is filled 
with shadows nothing can dispel but 
the light of sympathetic souls. Ah ! 
that I could this day have your kisses 
as the sun has this morning kissed 
the fields ! and receive love from your 
eyes as the fields are now glancing up 
to heaven ! and be enveloped in the 
aroma of your kind heart as the roses 

75 



distil their perfume on the sweet 
caressing- air ! What would your pres- 
ence be when the contemplation of 
your love lifts my soul serene to God ! 
Is there aught on earth worth a minute 
of life but love ? or aught else in 
heaven that can impart an element of 
bliss ? Was not that then my supreme 
moment of Eternity when I was in 
your arms ! I fling into heaven a 
storm of kisses that they may rain 
upon your face and lips. 



76 



ABSENCE. 

In nature's mutability we crave some 
element of permanence. We wish to 
believe the spirit of man is divine. 
We hope the suggestions of the heart 
in its highest state are true. We are 
wild for an eternity of the deepest 
emotions. It is disheartening to be 
driven to the thought that hope is 
ever a delusive phantom. The feel- 
ings of a man of faith, of one who 
longs for faith, will lament the fading 
memory of a friend. The cup of 
lethe is bitter drank to pure and holy 
love. 

Yet in the memory of a happy past 
is the bitterness of a wretched pres- 
ent. Tis a contemplation we seek, 

77 



though it sickens us. The mind can- 
not deeply concern itself with present 
objects when under the thralldom of 
absent love. The imagination cannot 
wander, but centers on one face and 
form. 'Tis before us by day, 'tis in 
our dreams by night. All the facul- 
ties of invention contrive how old joys 
may be renewed. The will bends its 
energies to one end; the mind is ab- 
sorbed in the contemplation of one 
object; the forces of the heart center 
upon one hope. The black clouds of 
despair hover in the mental horizon, 
the passions arise with the sweep and 
swing of tempest, the lucid elements 
sway and toss, the depths of spirit 
heave with the turbulence of a surg- 
ing sea and the soul wails for the 
peace of oblivion. 

It is questionable, however, whether 
78 



even under this deepest woe .of 
absence we are willing selfishly 
for the sake of our own peace 
to throw away all thought of one 
who has afforded us the highest 
pleasure of life. To that friend who 
has planted joy within my heart falls 
an eternal inheritance, a living habi- 
tation not made with hands, a lasting 
abode, a never-fading remembrance. 
I would not give my friend the pain 
which would arise from my peace 
when absent. *' / want to know all about 
what you have been doing since I left you. 
Have you been very lonely ? I hope not^ 
and yet I am selfish enough to gfieve if you 
had not missed me'' Worth a hundred 
affirmations of friendship, worth all 
the verbal protestations of love is 
one such candid word. Who would 
wish that his friends would wish to be 

79 



forgotten ! In light esteem must they 
hold friendship who are not grieved 
at being thrown from the thoughts of 
the absent. "Seek to forget me," are 
the most painful words friend can hear 
from friend at parting, unless indeed 
we can feel that it is the sigh of 
sacrifice, that the friend would be for- 
gotten who cannot forget, that the 
prayer is a conquest over self, born 
not of the indifference of superficial 
attachment but of the generous spirit 
of a deep, unending love. 

Oh, more welcome far 
The grasp of death than of the frigid hand 
That passively resigns me. 

The torture of the first months of 
absence, the deep unrest of such in- 
tense longing could not be perpetu- 
ated. The chafing of the sea would 
80 



wear away its shores. Peace comes 
not by forgetfulness, however, but by 
a higher adoration. Love becomes 
less intense, none the less true, and 
more beautiful. The imagination 
dwells upon the ideal of the absent. 
In the presence of beauty we desire its 
complete and perfect possession, we 
crave the blessings it can impart ; our 
unrest is deeper; our strife concen- 
trates every nerve and fibre of body 
and brain in all the intense agony of 
aspiration, because beauty present we 
believe to be attainable. But when 
the cherished object is wrung from 
our arms, when irrevocable fate tears 
asunder these hearts knit in common 
affinity, though the first season is 
passed in smothering our passionate 
grief, love eventually ascends into the 
spiritual. After the first surgings of 

8i 



the heart have subsided, beauty exists 
for the intellect. It is then to be con- 
templated as a form of truth, not felt 
and cherished for what it may bestow : 

My spirit soars away serene and free. 
And by the strength of its divine emotion. 
Transforms its love to all a saint's devotion. 

Refines desire into idolatry. 

Nor is it unlikely that this idealiza- 
tion may under some circumstances 
render absence more painful. There 
arises a contrast too great between 
this object and people we daily meet. 
There is not only the superior charm 
which the absent one possesses, in our 
estimation, but there is the difference 
between the ideal and the real. Love 
does not contemplate and adore the 
actual. Its depth, fervor and sincer- 
ity, sanctify the object. 
82 



It is a question for psychologists 
whether first love is not a natural 
development of man; whether it does 
not belong- to a particular stage of the 
heart's growth ; whether it is not the 
being's blossom and bloom, due to 
the natural unfolding of the emotions 
rather than exclusively to the influ- 
ence of the man or maiden who hap- 
pens to be its object. Happens to be 
its object — for assuming the truth of 
this suggestion, the affections would 
attach themselves to some person 
within the range of the lover's associa- 
tion. The destiny would be to love, 
and love at once, and some individual 
of the circle of acquaintances must be 
elevated into the ideal and receive the 
homage of this fresh-blown heart. 
The lover must perceive goodness and 
beauty for it is within his soul, a new 
83 



force, an artist who paints the outer 

world and creates a necessity to 

bestow reverence. 

Annie Jameson says, *'We are not 

to look into Bertrams character for 

the spring and source of Helenas 

love for him, but into her own." 

Schlegel says, '' In most of his plays, 

Shakespeare treats love more as an 

affair of the imagination than of the 

heart." Emerson speaks of 'The 

illusion of love, which attributes to 

the beloved person all which that 

person shares with his or her family, 

sex, age or condition. Nay with the 

human mind itself." And Coleridge 

expatiated on the manner in which 

young poets, out of the product of 

their own fruitful imaginations, have 

clothed very ordinary women with 

the beauty of grace and accomplish- 
84 



ment, and have thus been won by the 
creations of their fancy rather than 
by attractions in the personal object 
of their affections. 

Furthermore; as supporting this 
suggestion, we have the indubitable 
fact that first love awakens sensations 
which belong to no later attachment. 
It possesses an element of the spirit- 
ual not aroused by later influences. It 
imparts a sense of the near presence 
of the unseen, of the eternal, the in- 
finite. We believe in the endurance 
of the first love. We have a shudder- 
ing fear that the second may end, and 
we be driven to the belief that the 
divinest feelings are brief and tran- 
sient as the day, and we beseech our 
lady with a piteous longing she can 
but imperfectly understand that she 
will bind us to her by every possible 
8s 



pledge, that she will demand con- 
stancy and truth, so that her con- 
fidence and trust may ennoble us, that 
her love may never be withdrawn, 
that it may ever rule in our heart, be 
our enduring hope and secure us to 
eternal good. 

From this view, is not the second 
the real love? due alone to the in- 
fluence of its object? awakened by a 
personal presence which answers 
every longing of the developed na- 
ture? a feeling called up by natural 
attractions rather than coming up by 
development and going unconsciously 
out to seek an object. 

There can be no doubt that under 
presence and bestowal first love would 
endure a pure and holy feeling; but 
another indication that it may be but 
a development of the emotional na- 

86 



ture, is that the same maiden cannot 
a second time awaken the feehngs 
belonging to first love. It is lament- 
able that the state has passed never 
to recur. No influence can ever 
recall the Divine and Infinite which 
strengthen, elevate and inspire this 
intensity of ideal devotion. 

Severed from the object of first 
love, this adoration is the source 
of an insupportable agony, but an 
agony of mind rather than of heart. 
We contemplate the absent one in 
all the radiance of spiritual beauty. 
We feel that our being is a growth, 
and imagine the tree of life must 
perish, removed afar from this glow- 
ing sun. We could rest in peace, 
and our happiness flourish under 
the serene smile, seeking no closer 
approach, no greater condescension, 
87 



than Dante craved from Beatrice 
— her ''Salutation." Fortunate the 
maiden whose feelings and capa- 
bility can respond to the divine 
function of moulding the destiny of 
another heart, of shaping the future 
of man, of ever watching an unfold- 
ing Hfe conforming itself to her con- 
ceptions, aspiring to the rewards of 
her love, bending to her wishes the 
strength which bends to naught be- 
sides, and paying to her the tribute 
of its worship and honor of its work 
— and happy he on whom tjiis fortune 
tendSo But forlorn is the prospective 
life of her whom the destinies of love 
impel into another path and the oppo- 
site sphere — whose ambition percepti- 
bly yields under the stress of unceas- 
ing toil, the brokenness of whose 
spirit is revealed in the drooping 

88 



shoulders which once were erect, the 
lagging step, the indifferent bearing, 
which once were firm and proud, the 
languid conversation which once was 
animated and gay — who abandoning 
her aim and hope debases another's 
ideal, sinks for rest and ease under 
the shadow of a decayed tree, yields 
herself a living sacrifice into the arms 
of one whose life is in the past, and 
whom the fire of love can reanimate 
but for a day, and thus becomes a vas- 
sal to the insipidity of age rather than 
a companion to youth and goddess of 
the destiny of a life. Fortunate he 
who losing the object of his love and 
losing also his love, may preserve its 
first effects, and ever know because 
the heavens were opened once, there 
ARE heavens to be opened. Im- 
plore the gods, Oh lover, that though 
89 



you lose the loved, and lose faith in 
the loved, you lose not faith in your 
love^ that you may dwell, though not 
with happiness and her, yet alone 
with Love in that sphere of ecstatic 
virtue, which is Love's own. 



Will it not last? 
Oh ! make it Eternal ! 

Is it soon past ? 
Love, the Supernal ? 



90 



What brought me into life ? That 
shall carry me away. I was left here 
by woman. Perhaps love holds wait- 
ing arms to clasp me when I go. I 
shall walk on serenely — that is, indif- 
ferently — and laugh together with 
God as we have often done at our 
ironies. And as I continue on to- 
ward the End with my sardonic and 
amusing Companion, I still shall 
throw to hovering hope and good- 
cheer, hospitality from my eye. 




91 



